大象传媒

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Anyone associated in the public mind with Blair OR Brown is unelectable.

The next tests for Labour are (a) spending cuts, and (b) electoral reform. Both are minefields.

If Labour follows its "old Labour" instinct and backs opposition to the cuts from public sector vested interests, it will be regarded with contempt by most of the electorate. Going "old Labour" over cuts would be a huge mistake.

On electoral reform, it will be interesting to see how Labour (i) opposes a voting system that it was in favour of as recently as May, in its election manifesto, and (ii) seeks to oppose a redistribution proposal which would strip the party of a grossly unfair in-built advantage.

Slip up on either of these and Labour risks looking sectoral, bigoted and nakedly self-interested. Which, I suppose, wouldn't really surprise anyone.........

So nice to see you rewriting someone else's words to suit your own agenda.

In the Andrew Marr interview, Blair points out that "incidentally ... David... is his own man" in response to Marr saying that one of the Milliband brothers is a Blairite.

Blair neither says nor infers that he is backing David Milliband.

He may well be, but he said nothing in the clip to indicate this is true. So, if you know something different, then publish it with proper citation and credible references, but STOP putting words into other people's mouths - that is not what we licence payers pay you to do.

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Two years ago nobody was thought capable of taking over from the man who was grossly negligent over banking regulations, over-spending and over-borrowing. What has changed since? Nothing. Brown was badly flawed. Blair was badly flawed. And they were the best Labour had.

Blair and Brown were a bit like Clough and Taylor. One could communicate and energise, the other worked behind the scenes and planned the strategy. As so often happens, egos intervened, the relationships broke down and neither could function effectively without the other.

It remains to be seen whether Cameron and Clegg can function together but they are no Clough and Taylor, young man.

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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

What Tony Blair does not get (or admit) is that he was heading for electoral defeat. He could not get rid of Brown because he had lost so much credibility due to the Iraq invasion, that he needed Brown on side so that he could continue to be PM. While Brown performed his dubious economic policies the country was happy - they did not want to know how the trick was done. If Blair hadn't gone to war he would have been in a stronger position to deal with Brown. So while he might think that going to war was the correct decision, the consequential strengthening of Brown's position certainly did the New Labour cause no good.

As for continuing the New Labour project. It's too late - it has been taken over and modified by Cameron. Jst as Blair took over Thatcher's policies in a modified way.

The sooner we forget the legacy Blair aspires to leave us the better. His hubris is cringe-making. He will not enjoy the comfort of knowing we've read his book - I and many, many others have made up our own minds on the total mess his government and ministers - riddled with a faux celeb culture - inflicted on this country for a decade. I will not buy the book but will donate its cost to the 'Help The Heroes' campaign. How the american public continues to listen to, and fall for, his version of history thereby funding his property portfolio, beggars belief. Don't they recall Lincoln's great saying? "You can fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all the people all the time."

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"..the Labour Party's greatest communicator and unrivalled election winner."????????

Look at the Popular vote:
Attlee: 1945: 49.7%; 1950: 46.1% 1951: 48.8%
Blair: 1997: 43.2%; 2001: 40.7% 2005: 35.2%

Let's face it: Blair never got the votes in victory that Attlee and Gaitskell got in defeat! His "victories" were due to a divided opposition and a corrupt electoral system. The great communicator? I think not!

His message now seems to be that Labour won't be electable unless they choose someone not worth electing?

I think he was a Tory deep mole inserted into the Labour Party as a young man. His mission was to sabotage a future Labour government if the Tories ever became unelectable. Ok - maybe not, but if he had been a mole, would his actions and policies have been any different?

Was this NewLabour internecine infighting just "Small Beer" as well, Nick?

Would someone at the B大象传媒 like to tell me when they will quit giving my money and every other TV tax payers money to people like the ex PM and his pals in the party who have also written books via unnecessary interviews and unnecessary publicity for their publications?

I don't give a rats bottom about these people, I don't intend buying their books, I am not interested in their personality clashes nor indeed their sexual prowess , drinking habits etc.etc.
Could someone tell Andrew Marr that he is as boring over this as he was over the American ( junket) primaries .

Blair has advanced his hubris yet again. Releasing a book that just happens to coincide with Labour Party members casting their vote. For the media there is only one candidate - David Miliband. All the others are anonymous additional characters in the soap.

What does Blair mean by "New Labour". No one appears to ask this rather fundamental question. If one were to judge by actions it means divesting democratically elected MPs of power and giving them to more unaccountable quangos. Perhaps it means an active and aggressive foreign policy with the USA invading countries you disagree with. Maybe it means providing opportunity for billionaire bankers, property developers and private equity firms to make even more cash in an unregulated financial market. On the other side of that New Labour provided millions with part time, non-union, casual jobs that paid minimum wage that subsidised employers poor pay with tax credits.

Maybe New Labour was really about a decade long assault on civil liberties in which a CCTV camera was positioned at the corner of most streets in every town centre.

Logically if you move to the political right you crowd out the traditional right of centre party. The Conservative Party couldn't be more right wing than Blair otherwise it would have fallen off the spectrum entirely. New Labour was about being a conservative party with characters like John Prescott nodding and winking at the working class saying "dont worry I will keep this under control".

Brown lost precisely because he rolled back from a completely right of centre agenda and gave the Conservative Party space to be right wing again.

So the Blair message is simple. If you take a right of centre position you crowd out the Tories and win elections. After you win you can implement all the great things New Labour is now famous for including privatisation and working with big business. Alternatively you can try to persuade people that a good society is a more equal society and return to power with principle.

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I seem to remember in an David Miliband news clip not long after after the election where he said that New Labour is no longer viable vehicle to move forward, so I'd hardly think he is a 'Blairite'.

The Labour Party really need a character to stamp their own brand and put a line under the Brown / Blair years.

As for Blair, his nadir will always be the 2002 UN Iraq resolution 1441 and his foolish belief that it carried more weight than it actually did (the resolution quite clearly states a further, finite resolution would be required before military action would be legitimised.) All for the sake of waiting 6-18 months, then Saddam's intransigence would would have give all nations (not just the US coalition) the legal authority to remove him.

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How quickly the media class conveniently forget the abolutely useless more peas Major. After that wimp, Blair was like a breath of fresh air.
Yes he got things wrong, yes with hindsight we should not nhave been dragged into a war planned by the USA. But all this weeping and gnashing of teeth about our troops being killed, what about the Falklands war? very short memories indeed. A war to win Thatcher another term? and the gullible British public believing we were still an Empire fell for it. Personally getting a LibCon government is exactly what this county's electorate deserve. The greed and selfish factor is not just limited to bankers, its rampant across most of society. How we ever managed to have an Empire in the first place is amazing. But, then we had the majority of people who really believed in "Public Service". Its no use looking to any of the main parties for that, because they have shown by their cavalier attitude to honesty and decency that they consider the public tax payers as gullible milch cows. When oh when are we going to get a decent, honest, truthful person inot politics? someone who actually firmly puts the UK before any self gratification, honour or financial reward? I live in dwindling hope.

"There's an old saying: don't look in the crystal ball, read the book"

I googled this "old saying" - strange that you are the only person on record as saying it! Are you related to Nikita Khrushchev? He was famous for inventing old sayings too! ;-)

No man is perfect.Neither is a Prime Minister perfect. Hence,my thanks to two Prime Ministers who kept the UK treading water for a while.How perfect will the PM Cameron and the Deputy PM Clegg have to be to captain the UK across turbulent seas to where? I think that it is time to drop the criticism, wait for "truth"( so difficult for scholars and philosophers) before judging the personality,policy and perspicacity of the two last Prime Ministers.
Now perhaps advice for,hopefully not to drown,the best actions of the new team.
I think it important for each relevant member of the recent holders of high office to tell us of their thoughts and experiences;the many facets displaying the history eventually, as near as possibly, to the degree of truth of diamond quality.
Our judgement will be improved by more time of truths.

Sasha Clarkson (13) is right in spirit but misses the point about the man. He wasn't a tory in the narrow sense, his entire concern as PM was for his own glorification above any party or interest. He was essentially a petty Bonapartist figure but without any idea how to govern, unless there was a war to be fought. I can't say what I want to about this man and the damage he did for fear of being moderated out. I just hope history judges him more harshly than the modern media that he pandered to and who continue to whitewash him in return.

I am furious at Nick Robinson's comments. I am desperate to look to the future and for the Labour Party to become a progressive force fit for purpose in the 21st century. I don't expect Labour to admit that everything since 1994 has been a ghastly mistake that must not be repeated, not while protagonists are still in the front line of politics. But we must put behind us the squabbles that disfugured the last government. Because I measure him by his personal qualities rather than by which of the big boys he hung around with in the playground, I accept David Miliband as the most substantial figure in the leadership race and who has qualities that could take all of us forward. But comments from people like you Mr Robinson, by perpetuating the idea that there is a coherent philosophy and faction called Blairism, are imposing the past, its divisions and mistakes, on the future development of the Labour Party at this crucial moment. Since his premiership was an exercise in personal vanity, by definition there cannot be such a thing as Blairism, that would suggest that there were followers of some coherent value system. He has a small entourage who have regrouped in his silly little religious organisation, but Blairism within the Labour Party can have no meaning now that he has left. The media's obsessions with this ex-politician, and defining everyone by him, is distorting Labour's efforts to unify and reorganise.

Watching part of the Marr interview I thought "Is Blair just super self-confident,self-believing,arrogant or just nuts ?"

Most people put up with capitalism, and go along with its political game of Ins and Outs in the hope of getting a few crumbs out of it, because they see no practicable alternative. But there is an alternative.
Marx once wrote that the government is "but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie". And it's still true. The function of any government is to manage the common affairs of the capitalist class as a whole. This involves a number of things. Sustaining a context in which profit-making can continue. Spending the money raised from taxes (that are ultimately a burden on the capitalist class) in a prudent way on things that will benefit the capitalist class as a whole, such as providing them with an educated,relatively healthy and so productive workforce. Maintaining - and if need be
using - armed forces to protect sources of raw materials, trade routes, investment outlets and markets abroad.

Politics should be more than individuals deciding which politicians to trust to deliver some crumbs that they think will benefit them individually. It should be about collective action to change society.
About taking over the whole bakery for themselves.A plague on all their houses.

Considering I have had my last comment removed by the 'moderators' on the previous post, which was not anti Robinson or anti 大象传媒 I can only now believe the 大象传媒 is a labour controlled organisation which I have suspected for some time.
What the hell is going on in our so called democracy and non political 大象传媒?
The licence is almost sure to go when your moderators cannot stand any comments which are negative about labour or the 大象传媒 or Nick Robinson (who I did not criticise at all). I would ask every sensible person in the Uk to get in touch with their MP, whichever party they support and get rid of this corruption in our so called free press.

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Hague has previous here
Did he not share a flat with Alan Duncan when a new MP!
Also that Tom guy on ITV (Who told us Gordon Brown would be thrown out of Office every week)thinks it's untrue - DOH!
Remember Jim Hacker's 1st Rule of Politics
Never believe anything until it's been officially denied

The 大象传媒 interviewing Tony Blair!

What a shambles! Andrew Marr?

How can anyone in this organisation be expected to be non political after years of blatant labour support

@23 Actually I agree with you.

Disraeli said of Gladstone: "His conscience was not so much his guide, as his accomplice". I believe this to be true of Blair, not only regarding his conscience, but also his reasoning capabilities.

I always had the impression that he was to lazy to be properly informed about important issues, in particular the complex history and ethnography of Iraq/Mesopotamia. However he would decide what he wanted to be true and then get his aides to look for supporting arguments.

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Blair is a man of Straw

No doubt it suits Blair to peddle his own version of history (New Labour Good, Old Labour Bad), but it's a myth.

The fact is Blair set this country on a downward course long before Brown took over. Blair believed in Big Government, the Nanny/Surveillance State, ID Cards, RIPA (the snoopers charter), and handing over yet more powers to unelected officials in Brussels. There was nothing 'new' about Blair, apart from his smarmy approach to the media and cosying up to the press.

Let us also not forget that it was Blair who allowed Brown to have a free hand at the treasury - appointing possibly the worst ever Chancellor in recorded history.

It was also Blair who stood aside and allowed Brown to be 'appointed' Prime Minister, unopposed, without any electoral mandate.

So if Blair really thought Brown would be a 'disaster' as Prime Minister (as indeed it turned out) the fault lies squarely with Blair for standing down and handing him the keys to number 10.

Blair is deluded if he really thinks Brown could have won, if only he'd been more 'new labour'.

The reason Labour lost was because the public could see that Labour was totally inept, didn't understand economics, had plunged us into record debt, had eroded our civil liberties, given away our sovereignty, broken their promise on a referendum, put up taxes, and shown total contempt for England by giving one-sided devolution to Scotland.

Blair cannot wash his hands of this mess. New or Old Labour - it amounts to the same thing. Labour can never be trusted with the economy. To pretend otherwise is just spin.

Labour's most illustrious leader and successful Politician seems to endorse one man.......David Cameron.

There is a daily publication which has mashed together a most apposite review.

It amuses me that he still relies on the way he communicates rather than having anything meaningful to say.

I can't get hung up on the Brown relationship thing. This is politics after all. These people are by definition dysfunctional when it comes to normal behaviour and I expect the current government will have its own interesting relationships uncovered in due course.

Ok - so in the interests of clarity would Tony Blair tell us how a 'new Labour' government would have dealt with the budget deficit? Because no-one else has yet except Ed Balls who says he would have ignored it.

We have a reforming government now and its hard to see how Labour will regain momentum until someone shows some statesmanship or stateswomanship on fiscal policy. To remain in denial is not going to work.

ps Surely they can't elect Mr Bean as the next leader
I can't get that image of him waving that banana around, out of my head.

Maybe that says more about me than him.

25#

"Politics should be more than individuals deciding which politicians to trust to deliver some crumbs that they think will benefit them individually. It should be about collective action to change society."

Hear, hear. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, we as voters, as a nation do not think like that, although we most definitely should.

All this says is that the Labour party has no fiscal policy.

As newlabour they failed to provide a spending review and now as labour they are still deficit deniers without the faintest idea how to deal with the biggest budget deficit in history.

Only Labour governments leave this kind of unholy mess. And only a Labour governemnt would walk away and pretend it did nothing wrong. The left wing press are still in denial about the fact that spending just can't go on rising forever. The latest statement by Blair about the over reliance on the Keynesian prop is a nasty reminder to them that Keynesian economics failed to deliver the paradise it promised after the war.

There is a vacuum at the heart of the Labour party on economic policy; on reform of the public sector; on pensions; on financial regulation... on just about everything unless it involves sending some more of our armed forces into war. This vacuum cannot be filled by the blow up newlabour army candidates currently on offer; they are all the epitomy of the metropolitical man with lots of bright ideas but not a clue how to implement them. Not one of them could win an election. We have moved on from their arguments for good. They will be preaching last decade's story and look tragically out of date.

It's a great time to be a tory...

re #23
Bonapartist? Interesting.

I would have said Thatcherite. Very Thatcherite.

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re #32.

Agreed. And Maggie had feet of clay ...

And Straw is a man of ...

I found it most telling that Jack seemed increasingly uncomfortable in New Labour but once made the telling comment "We're the party of the rich, now."

Would Jack Straw circa 1995 be the best candidate to lead a proper Labour Party now?

Politicians, despite the media fixation with fixed points, do change as people and as politicians over periods of time. For better and for worse.

The Labour party is certainly in a quandary.

Tony Blair still harps on about New Labour but it is no good just telling people what you want to do you have to have the backing of your paymasters before you can do it.

This is where New Labour failed and although Gordon Brown can be blamed for scuppering it at least he was aware of the problems he would face trying to implement right of centre policies with his own voters.

Labour should go back to getting a fair deal for the working people who have suffered badly during their time in office and their so called New Labour policies.

Trying to carry on as they were and those policies being exposed by drip feed as having been detrimental to us all will only determine their eventual demise.

I'm no longer a fan of Labour but there will always be a need for balance in politics but only as long as the party can be true to itself and stay clean from the bile and dogma we have experienced from some of them over the last thirteen years.

#44
"Labour should go back to getting a fair deal for the working people who have suffered badly during their time in office and their so called New Labour policies."

I wonder how many people want to be identified as 'working people'? The problem is that such a phrase creates the impression of an industrial, cloth capped working class, living in grim conditions. I think I know that is what you mean, but the image of the working class is gone. A call to support it will fall on deaf ears.

There are peole who do not own factories or places of employment, who have to accept the wages that the bosses give them. The problem is that they can earn bonuses or receive incentive payments and have a higher standard of living then their predecessors of the 50s or 60s. Many own their own homes and have inside toilets. They do not see themselves as working class. The word 'working' when defining status now has a negative connotation. We need to think of another way of defining them

I watched the programme, made notes on it and got it on I pLayer and 大象传媒 Politics, and have to say that the Daily Mail have hyped the dealings with TB and GB over the deal at the restaurant. I mean, how many false reports and then TB says it was just an understanding. The debate was good, good questions, could have done with more analysis between TB and George Dubya.

@44 - Madam - well said! :-) (I wish we had a "like" button 鈽� on these pages.)

45 Boilerbill

Just to put the record straight when I say working I mean 'Working' which has nothing to do whatever with the job you do as against 'non-working' who have done very well out of New Labour.

As far as class is concerned that is only in the eye of the beholder. I have yet to hear anyone be able to define class in the 21st century.

Blair鈥檚 message to New Labour:
Former British PM Tony Blair still thinks there could be no better partner with whom to have a 鈥渟pecial relationship鈥� than the United States of America, especially the intelligent George w. Bush.
He even espouses this special relationship for Canada, saying: 鈥淐anada has got to decide 鈥� in a world that is opening up, with power shifting to the East, where America is looking at its own alliances shifting 鈥� what its place is.鈥� However, he graciously leaves the ultimate decision up to Canada, though he leaves absolutely no doubt about his own preference.
Blair proudly professes love for America and what it stands for. He believes that America is great for a reason 鈥here is a nobility in the American character 鈥� a devotion to the American ideal that at a certain point transcends class, race, religion or upbringing.
In his book, Blair swipes at 鈥渢he schadenfreude鈥� of politicians and opinion makers on the left who seized on the financial crisis to cast doubt on capitalism and push for the rehabilitation of the all-powerful state. He worries that too many leaders may be falling for this.
鈥淭o start calling into question the whole of the competitive market system, it鈥檚 daft and self-defeating.鈥�
The leading contenders, brothers David and Ed Miliband, represent two starkly different visions of the party鈥檚 future. Older sibling David Miliband sticks more closely to the New Labour credo Mr. Blair imposed upon the party, REMOVING FROM THE PARTY CONSTITUTION the goal of 鈥渢he common ownership of the means of production.鈥�
Ed Miliband, a fierce critic of modern capitalism, would return the party to its trade union roots.
In his book, he sets the context for his decision to back the US-led invasion of Iraq by asserting that 鈥減osing and answering a moral question doesn鈥檛 inexorably lead to a military solution, but it establishes a framework that can do so.鈥�
So, from all of this and more, I garner that Blair鈥檚 message to New Labour is to go with David Milliband.
Bind yourself tight to Americans in a special relationship.
Even when historical facts prove you to have acted illegally or even criminally, never acknowledge same.

Nick

Today the Middle-East peace talks resumed and both sides need all the help they can get to come to an amicable agreement. But were is Blair the Middle East Envoy鈥︹��. The self serving pigmy is over here pushing his book and Blairism, on a near bankrupted Party and Nation that he was instrumental in helping to create.